The Electoral Map Reality

In the end it all comes down to the Electoral Vote.  And in the Presidential election of 2012, it is all going to come down to takeaways by Romney from Obama.

In 2008, John McCain won 22 states and a total of 173 Electoral Votes while Barack Obama took 28 states plus DC and gained 365 EV's.

With the 2010 Census and the reapportionment that followed, if Romney took the same states as McCain, he would have 179 EV's to Obama's 359.  In order for the challenger to win, he must swing 91 Electoral votes to his column while not allowing any of McCain's winning states to change to the President.  

On the latter point it looks likely that Romney will win all 22 states that McCain won.  Of those 22 states none are currently in the toss up category, while Arizona, Montana and Missouri, are in the Leans Romney category.  The closest RCP average is Arizona with a 5.3 advantage to Romney.  Montana is at 9.3% and Missouri just went over the 10% mark, putting it near the likely Romney status, after being toss up as recently as a week ago.

So let's stipulate that Romney will not lose any of the McCain States.  Now he needs 91 pickups to overtake the President and win the election.

On that score Romney has already brought over Indiana as Likely.   RCP average is over 12.    That's 11 EV's.  

North Carolina has just recently gone over to the lean column.  If this holds, then that is an additional 15 EV's bringing the total up to 26 and Romney would now need 65.

The next likely state to go for Romney currently is Florida with 29 EV's, and is the biggest prize left in the tossup categories.  If Romney takes Florida it brings his needed total down to 36.

Obviously taking Ohio would give him half the remaining EV's he needs, but that at the moment looks just as likely for Obama as Florida looks for Romney.  So let's take Ohio out of the mix along with Pennsylvania (20 EV's) and Michigan (16 EV).

That leaves the following states to pick from:
Virginia (13)
Wisconsin (10)
Colorado (9)
Nevada (6)
Iowa (6)
New Hampshire (4)

Total of this group is 48.  Without Ohio, this means Romney must take Virginia (without it, Romney can only get to 35 which would still be a tie and throw it into the House for the tiebreaker).

But with Virginia, Romney would only need 23 EV's and he can accomplish this by taking Wisconsin, Colorado, and any of the other 3 states.   Clearly he would need Wisconsin OR Colorado in addition to Virginia, but he would also have to take all 3 of the remaining states (or a surprise state like Oregon or New Mexico which looks unlikely at this point.).

But let's take another look at the lose Virginia scenario, and taking the remaining 35 votes.  Romney still has an Ace in the hole in Nebraska.  In 2008 President Obama took the 2nd Congressional district in Nebraska by 3,000 votes and because of how Nebraska assigns it's electors, he picked up 1 of the 5 Nebraska Electoral Votes.  If Romney takes the 5 EV in Nebraska as well as Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, and New Hampshire he would win, 270-268.

It's always fun to play what if's, and I don't really expect it to be close in the end, but this is just a few of the many possibilities at this point.